20-year-old stabs elderly woman for no reason

A 20-year-old restaurant worker stabbed a 77-year-old woman with a kitchen knife for no apparent reason. The woman was hospitalized but her injury is not life threatening.

According to Naha Police, the woman was walking on a street in Wakasa near her home about noon on Friday, when a man approached her from behind and stabbed her in abdomen with what appears to have been a kitchen knife.

Police later arrested Takashi Iguchi, a 20-year-old restaurant worker, who gave himself up to police. When questioned, Iguchi reportedly said that he got an urge to stab someone, and anyone would do.

According to sources, Iguchi moved recently to Okinawa from mainland Japan, and is not acquainted with the woman. The woman had just left her house to go shopping when she was stabbed. The knife that Iguchi used to stab his victim was found on the scene.

After stabbing the woman, Iguchi went to a police station that is about 200 meters away from the scene, but found it unmanned. Then he made a call to Naha Police to confess the stabbing, and a police patrol came and arrested him. He tested positive for alcohol.

The scene of the crime is a side road in a quiet residential area close to a beach popular with tourists. The Tsushima-maru Memorial Museum is also in the area.